Many critics will no doubt rip apart Robert Pattinson’s performance as Salvador Dali in Little Ashes this weekend, but the truth is that it’s a surprisingly good portrayal of the artist. That is to say that given our expectations, combined with Pattinson’s own celebrity, added to the fact that anyone would look ridiculous sporting Dali’s signature mustache (even Dali), the Twilight actor does as well in the role as is possible. Is the performance Oscar-worthy? Certainly not, but it is deserving of some level of praise.
Pattinson’s Dali follows a long tradition of surprisingly good portrayals of iconic figures. Movie stars are constantly cast as famous persons they barely resemble, and often it’s difficult to shake off our identification with the player in order to accept him/her as the depicted individual. Some of these performances are better than others, and most have been honored by the Academy, but each actor and actress listed below either initially seemed like a wrong choice for the respective part or he/she was at least understood to be taking on a difficult task in attempting to portray such a familiar personality. …Read more
SAG has announced nine interim deals with indie production outfit The Film Department, in an effort to put pressure on the major studios to settle on a new contract in advance of a threatened strike. Variety says the studios are “unlikely” to be scared enough by the prospect of Catherine Zeta-Jones going back to work without them to be moved into immediate action.
Women in Film, “a non-profit organization dedicated to helping women within the entertainment, communication and media industries,”will honor Salma Hayek, Diane English, Ginnifer Goodwin and Sherry Lansing at their 35th annual awards ceremony in June.
The title for the long-awaited (apparently; if you’re acquainted with an awaiter, let us know) X-Files movie sequel has finally been released. The X-Files: I Want to Believe opens on July 25.
This being a federal holiday and all, I figured there wouldn’t be much to report on from the trades. However, I was very, very wrong. Check out this doozy of an announcement: Oliver Stone is to direct a biopic about George W. Bush, which will be titled Bush and star Josh Brolin in the lead. Obviously, Stone had thought he was making a biopic about America’s worst President twelve years ago with Nixon, but then of course came along Bush the Second. And since he used an actor (Anthony Hopkins) for that film who looked nothing like the subject, this time he’s doing to the same. I only hope that James Brolin gets to play George H.W. Bush.
The boys won the box office battle of the sexes as Cloverfieldopened with $41 million, the best weekend bow ever for January. That’s almost as much money as Roland Emmerich’s Godzilladebuted with ten years ago. The difference is that it cost $130 million to make while Cloverfield cost only $25 million. And yet with all the crap given to the monster from the 1998 Godzilla, it still looked cooler than the monster in Cloverfield. In fact, 27 Dresses (#2 this weekend with $22.4 million) probably had a scarier monster than Cloverfield — not that I would have seen that movie to find out.
Wait, I thought the Bush biopic was the oddest movie talked about in the trades today. Instead that honor should go to Cirque du Freak, to which Oscar nominee Ken Watanabe has just signed on. His role as a circus “barker” doesn’t sound that interesting, though, when compared to John C. Reilly as a vampire and Salma Hayek as … wait for it … a bearded lady.
Meanwhile, another movie tries to be today’s strangest, and fails miserably. Tim Meadows has been cast in the Ashley Tisdale-starrer They Came From Upstairs, which is basically like Home Aloneif Daniel Stern and Joe Pesci were aliens.
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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Barry Levinson’s meta Hollywood comedy What Just Happened?, which premiered at Sundance to a chorus of shrugs and remains undistributed, had been selected to close the Cannes Film Festival.
